Dan Gilgoff’s “God and Country” blog carries a guest column by pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton, who rejects accusations by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (the ex-gay think tank and lobbying group) against the American Psychological Association.
NARTH falsely accuses the APA of advising therapists to lure their clients from antigay churches to gay-tolerant or gay-affirming ones. The American Family Association’s “OneNewsNow” propaganda service parroted NARTH’s accusation without offering the APA a chance to correct prior inaccurate reporting by the Associated Press.
The advice to switch from an anti-gay church to a gay-tolerant or gay-affirming one clearly WASN’T given by the APA, nor was it the APA’ function to give it. Nonetheless, such advice may be wise and prudent.
If you belong to a church which keeps telling you that your natural sexuality is “intrinsically disordered” and that you are forbidden to form a same-sex sexual relationship, and which fights against civil measures designed to ensure that you are treated as decently as everyone else, you may well eventually come to the conclusion that this is psychological and spiritual abuse, and that the time has come to find another church to worship in. After all, why stay where you are being abused?
An elderly relative of mine, now deceased, was educated at a Catholic boarding school run by a religious order. After leaving school, he never set foot in a Catholic church again. He married a non-Catholic woman without applying for a dispensation, and when told by the local Catholic priest that his soul would burn in hell he told the priest where to go. He did, however, occasionally attend services at the local Anglican church. I can’t believe that it was a matter of theology, since he simply wasn’t the sort of man to concern himself with theological niceties. As far as the Catholic Church was concerned, he told my father that he refused to have anything to do with it, but would never say why. The probable reason has only occurred to me in the last few years, as a result of what has come to light about the misconduct of some Catholic priests and religious, although I can’t, obviously, be sure of it.
It strikes me that, if you’re in this position, it must be more or less psychologically impossible to return to your original church. How can you, when every crucifix, rosary, statue of the Virgin Mary or picture of the Sacred Heart that you see reminds you of the abuse that you suffered? A gay person who has been spiritually abused by the teaching of his or her church on homosexuality may start to experience similar reactions and may reasonably decide, for the sake of his spiritual and psychological health, to move on elsewhere.